From my kitchen to yours

Tag Archives: Ricotta

It’s been a looong time readers! I apologize for my absence, but life gets in the way sometimes. Over in our household, things have changed radically! In November our little girl was born, and you know what newborns mean! Amazement, happiness, wonder, lack of sleep and no time. Yet, I have to say that we are lucky, she sleeps through the night already and is a pretty easy baby, so that has freed up some time for me to be able to cook again. Granted, not much time, but on weekends I get to make nice comfort food because the hubby and my eldest daughter are around to give me a hand.

Since the birth of our little one, I have started to eat more vegetables, in preparation for starting her off on the right foot. What I didn’t expect, is how much better I feel, and how heavy and bloated I get when I eat meat. Now, don´t get me wrong, I looove meat, but I think I am going to do weekday vegetarianism and save the meat for the weekends!

Just recently I started seeing spaghetti squash at the market, and its been two weeks in a row that I cook it at home. This recipe was inspired by a Jamie Oliver show I saw last week, but he used butternut squash instead. This recipe is mine, because I know he didn’t use any béchamel and his was a sort of rotolo, like a rolled up pasta. I don´t get to watch too much tv now and when I do, I usually don’t get to see the whole program!

I wasn’t sure about this combination of veggies, but it works marvelously and is going to be a repeat offender in our house! My daughter who only ate spinach in spanakopita, now loves this dish and bonus she gets squash and spinach! This is a sunday type meal, since it does take a little bit of extra time to make it. But please, do try it, I guarantee you will not miss the meat and will keep this recipe to use again and again!

Spaghetti Squash, Spinach and Ricotta Lasagna

Serves 8

12 sheets precooked lasagna sheets

1 recipe garlic spinach (below)

1 small spaghetti squash, roasted and seeded, peeled and mashed

1 recipe tomato sauce (below)

1 recipe béchamel (below)

1 small tub of ricotta cheese

1 mozzarella, chopped

2 tbsp grated Parmigiano Reggiano

To make the lasagna, preheat your oven to 190C (375F). In a large bowl, mix the squash, spinach and ricotta, try it to see if it needs any more salt or pepper. In a baking dish, spoon some of your tomato sauce on the bottom so the pasta sheets won’t stick. Then lay 3 lasagna sheets down, and top each with a large spoonful of the squash mixture, a little bit of the mozzarella, béchamel sauce, and then some tomato sauce. Repeat 3 times until you get to your last layer, which you only top with the remaining béchamel, tomato, mozzarella and Parmigiano Reggiano cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Take off the aluminum foil, raise the heat to 200C (400F) and cook for another 10 minutes. Let it rest for 10-15 minutes before serving (or you WILL burn your tongue off!)

For the garlic spinach recipe:

300 g frozen baby spinach

1 tbsp of olive oil

2 garlic cloves, chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

water, to defrost spinach

In a large sauté pan, add the frozen spinach, garlic, oil and water (just enough to cover the spinach, like half a cup). Over medium high heat, cook the spinach until it defrosts and the water has evaporated. Add salt and pepper and then place in a fine mesh colander to strain the cooking water out of the spinach. Place in a large bowl to cool, set aside.

Meanwhile, make the tomato sauce…

Tomato Sauce recipe:

2 400g tins of pureed tomatoes

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 dried red chili pepper

1/4 tsp of oregano

Salt and pepper to taste

1 tbsp of olive oil

In a sauté pan over medium heat, add the olive oil, garlic, chili, and oregano. Heat until the garlic is fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes, 3/4 of the can full of water, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook for 20 minutes. Meanwhile make the béchamel sauce….

Béchamel Recipe:

4 tbsp unsalted butter

4 tbsp flour

3 cups cold milk

dash of white pepper

dash of freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 tsp salt

In a heavy bottomed saucepan over medium low heat, add the butter and melt. When foamy, add the flour and whisk until completely incorporated and let cook for about 4 minutes, whisking constantly. In a constant drizzle add the cold milk and keep whisking until added. Continue to cook, whisking to make sure you have no lumps until the sauce thickens, about 15 minutes. Take off heat and add the pepper, nutmeg and salt.

On the weekends, my tummy and daughter begs me to make pancakes. It’s something I have done for, let’s see, 15 years. That is a lot of pancakes my friends. Needless to say, I need to vary the ingredients because regular pancakes, as good as they are, get a little boring. Now, I’ve seen multiple recipes for Lemon Ricotta pancakes, but I have a stash of blood oranges, and decided to switch it up and see what came out.

I didn’t use this many for the recipe, the juice from one was enough. The rest were just juiced to go with our breakfast. I was pleasantly surprised, the times I have made the lemon ricotta, I really didn’t taste that much lemon. The blood orange juice gave it a sweeter, and slightly tart flavor. Adding ricotta made them super creamy and just a little bit denser. We all loved them, and as soon as blood orange season rolls around again, I know that I’ll be making this on Saturday morning!

So here’s what you’re going to need:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

Juice from one Blood Orange

1/2 cup ricotta

1 cup sliced strawberries

1 tbsp mint, in chiffonade

1 tsp sugar

Butter

Maple Syrup

In a large bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Set aside. In another bowl, mix the egg, milk, orange juice and ricotta until combined. Add to the flour mixture, and whisk just until combined. Do not overmix, it’s ok if there are still some lumps.

In a small bowl, mix the strawberries, mint and sugar well. Let them sit until you are ready to serve.

Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Add a tsp of oil or butter, and wipe the pan with a paper towel so there is just a film of the oil or butter.

Using a 1/4 cup measurement, or a small ladle, place the batter and cook until it bubbles, then flip over. Repeat with remaining batter. You should be able to make 6-7 pancakes.

Top the pancakes with the strawberries, butter and syrup. Serve immediately.

When I was in college, I remember we had a friend over for dinner, well actually, he made dinner. He said he was a professional chef, and he made something similar to this. I remember thinking it was one of the most sophisticated things anyone my age had ever made for me. And back then, I thought it was so complicated! I was very, very impressed. So, recently I purchased this gorgeous piece of pork loin that comes from Spanish Black Pigs, which apparently are juicier and tastier than their pink counterparts.
It definitely didn’t disappoint. I decided to use some of my beautiful rosemary growing on my little balcony, and to stuff it with portobello mushrooms, spinach and ricotta. It was divine, and super moist and delicious. Easy too!

The hardest part is butterflying the loin, but I will add a link with detailed instructions!

So here’s what you’re going to need:

Serves 6

1 kg pork loin

3 sprigs of Rosemary

3 tbsp butter, softened

3 tbsp olive oil

2 cloves of garlic, sliced

400 g frozen chopped spinach, defrosted and strained of all the water

100 g portobello mushrooms, finely diced

1 small package of ricotta cheese

Salt and Pepper to Taste

Preheat the oven to 190 C. Meanwhile, in a large sauté pan, add the olive oil and the garlic, cook over medium heat until fragrant. Add the spinach and mushrooms and raise the heat and cook until the mushrooms are softened, about 5 minutes. Take off heat and mix with the ricotta, salt and pepper. Set aside.

Now, butterfly your pork loin. You can see the technique here. Salt and pepper the loin, and spread a thin layer of the spinach mixture. Don’t worry if you have left over, you can keep this in the fridge and re-use it for empanadas, lasagna, cannelloni etc.

Now tie your loin, and place in a baking dish fatty side up. Rub generously with the butter, sprinkle on the salt, pepper and the rosemary. Cook for about 20 minutes, or until the internal temperature reaches 145 F. It will continue to cook when you take it out of the oven, so it will reach 150 F.